How many Nightmare on Elm Street remakes are there, and which one just got killed off?

Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street came out in 1984. Robert Englund played Freddy Krueger, a burned child killer with a bladed glove who murders teenagers in their dreams. The movie cost about $1.1 million and made $57.1 million worldwide, enough to turn New Line Cinema from a small distributor into what Hollywood still calls "The House That Freddy Built." Six sequels followed, plus a TV series and Freddy vs. Jason in 2003.

The short answer

Freddy has been officially remade exactly once. The full list is longer.

• Khooni Murda (1989) — the first Bollywood film built on Elm Street, made without asking anyone.
• Mahakaal (1994) — the Ramsay Brothers' horror movie about Shakaal, a razor-gloved killer who murders people in their dreams.
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) — the only official remake, with Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy.
• New Line's second try (2015) — a remake that never got past the script stage.
• Lee Cronin's version (2026) — the one that just got killed off at Warner Bros.
• Paramount's version (2026) — still alive, and Paramount says it's not a remake.

The 2010 remake

Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes, which had already redone The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th, produced the remake, with music-video director Samuel Bayer making his feature debut. Haley took over the glove, and Rooney Mara played Nancy. Haley called the prosthetics "pretty encumbering."

It opened on April 30, 2010, cost $35 million, and made $117.7 million worldwide, the biggest gross in franchise history. Critics hated it: it sits at 14% on Rotten Tomatoes. Haley and Mara were both signed for sequels, and Platinum Dunes floated a 3D follow-up after opening weekend. It never happened.

The one that stalled

In August 2015, New Line started over and hired David Leslie Johnson, who wrote Orphan and later co-wrote Aquaman, to write another remake. Three years later, he had little to report. "Nothing is percolating just yet," he told CinemaBlend in 2018, with New Line busy with The Conjuring universe.

He still thought Freddy would come back. "Everybody wants to see Freddy again I think, so I think it's inevitable at some point," he said. He was right, just not at New Line.

How Freddy ended up at two studios

Craven's estate got the US rights to his original screenplay back, with help from attorney Marc Toberoff. On July 13, 2026, Paramount licensed them for a new film under its genre label Paramount Primal, run by J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules, the producers of Barbarian and Weapons. Craven's widow, Iya Labunka, his son Jonathan Craven, and Toberoff are producing.

Lifshitz and Margules said they looked forward to helping "welcome Freddy home."

But Warner Bros., New Line's parent, still held the international rights. On July 30, Kim Masters reported in Puck that Warner was in talks with Lee Cronin, the director of Evil Dead Rise and The Mummy, to write and direct its own Elm Street, and was trying to get it into production first.

"Now they're looking to make their own movie, which they can only distribute overseas," Masters wrote. Cronin had already told Variety in April that he "would find it very hard not to have a swing at ol' Freddy Krueger."

Don't miss: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple list of deaths — including whether Ralph Fiennes' Dr. Kelson makes it out

Which one got killed off

Cronin's. Paramount completed its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery on October 6, which put both Freddys under the same owner. Michael De Luca, who had pushed to get Warner's version made first, was pushed out along with co-chair Pam Abdy during the transition, according to TheWrap.

On November 10, Dread Central reported that Warner's project was dead and that Paramount Primal is now the only studio developing a new Elm Street.

"The fight over who gets to bring Freddy Krueger back is over," Brad Miska wrote.

Is Paramount's movie a remake?

Not according to Paramount. Early reports described it as a shot-for-shot remake, but the studio told CBR the film is "set in the world of A Nightmare on Elm Street, based on the original screenplay."

It has no writer or director yet. Parker Finn of Smile reportedly circled it but is busy remaking Possession. Jane Schoenbrun, director of I Saw the TV Glow, wants the job. "I'm trying to get a meeting on this Nightmare on Elm Street thing," Schoenbrun told Dread Central.

Robert Englund, who played Freddy eight times, has one request for whoever gets it: "I hope they don't remake Part 1 again. I think we've had enough of that."

Previously we wrote: James Gunn is out, and suddenly Clayface is a flop